Rumor: New Xbox to be “Always Online”

With a possible Playstation 4 reveal slated for February 20th, EDGE reports on some newly leaked specs for the next generation of Microsoft’s new hardware iteration. According to the report, the new Xbox will require a continuous connection to Xbox Live in order to function, and make use of activation codes for video games to combat the second hand market. More details are included after the jump.

According to the report, games will be made available on BluRay discs as well as digitally, but the discs will have little use on the second-hand market as they feature a single-use activation key. In addition, the hardware specifications that have been rumored over the last few weeks have been confirmed by the anonymous source as being completely accurate. If true, the new Xbox would feature “an AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution and 8GB of DDR3 RAM.” Though it is still unclear how much content users will be able to store on their harddrives, the report suggests it will be the biggest harddrive that has ever been featured in a console.

Supposedly, a new generation of the Kinect sensor will also be released when the new hardware makes it way to retaillers, though no new information on the peripheral have been published.